MSFT Claims Billion Dollar Clerical Error

Microsoft this week admitted to making a $1 billion mistake in recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings about its earnings.

The company cited a "clerical error in the amount of unearned revenue and the recognition of unearned revenue." Unearned revenue is a financial term for revenues a company has received but for which it has not yet provided any products or services.

Microsoft originally reported unearned revenue as $1.1 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30 and $3.8 billion for the six months ending Dec. 31. The corrected figures were $2.1 billion and $4.8 billion.

Microsoft claims the net cash from operations and the net change in cash and equivalents for the two reporting periods were not affected by the correction.

Microsoft is planning to activate "Insights for MyAnalytics" sometime late this month for most Office 365 users, but the ability of organizations to manage this feature won't be available until possibly mid-May.